Steam-fuel feeder



Aug. 12 1924.

; c. L. STRANDRUD STEAM FUEL FEEDER Filed Oct. '7, 1922 2 Sheets-Sheet 1Who 0- 26*Q7a0576125 Aug. 12 1924. 7 1,504,528

c. 1.. STRANDRUD STEAM FUEL FEEDER Filed Oct. 7, 1922 2 Sheets-Sheet 3Patented Aug. 12, 1924.

UNITED STATES CHRIS L. STRANDRUD, OF SEATTLE, WASHINGTON.

STEAM-FUEL FEEDER.

Application filed October 7, 1922. Serial No. 598,159.

To all 'wlw'm. it may concem:

Be it known that Cmzrs L. STRANDRUD, a citizen of the United States,residing at Seattle, in the county of King and State of Washington, hasinvented certain new nace, and means for readily and convenientlypermitting an attendant to manually distribute and spread the saw dustin the furnace.

The invention also comprehends improvements in the details ofconstruction and arrangement of parts which will be hereinafterdescribed and particularly pointed out in the claim.

In the drawings:

Fig. 1 is a side view of the invention applied to a furnace.

Fig. 2 is a top plan view.

Fig. 3 is a section on line 33 of Fig.2, the initial position of thenozzles being shown in dotted lines.

Fig. 1 is an enlarged side view of the spout and hood.

Fig. 5 is a perspective view of the hood. Fig. 6 is a section on line 66of Fig. 2. 1 indicates a. furnace, 2 the grate, and 3 the feed openingto the fire box.

Suitably supported in front of the furnace is a hopper 4, provided withan upwardly inclined tapered exit end 5. A steam supply pipe 6 passesinto the front end of the hopper. The pipe 6 is formed w1th a circularsection 20' having a flared hollow proiection 21 extending forwardlytherefrom. Rotatably mounted within the section 20 is a hollow coupling8, having an opening 22 which in all posit-ions of the couplingestablishes communication between said coupling and the pipe 6. Lateralpipes 7 project from the coup-ling 8 and each of the pipes 7 and alsothe coupling 8 carry forwardly projecting nozzles 9. By reason of theflaring projection 21, through which the central nozzle 9 projects, amovement of the nozzles is permitted on the coupling 8 as a center, theupper wall of the projection 21 limiting the upper position of thenozzles to a substantially horizontal one permits a downward movement ofthe nozzles to direct their open ends downwardly, as shown in. dottedlines in Fig. 3. This detail is conventional construction and no claimis made to'such herein.

Fitted to turn on the end of thetapered exit end 5, is a pipe 10, whichrejects through the feed opening in the ont of the furnace. This pipe isprovided with handles 11 to readily permit an operator to rotate it, aswill appear later on.

Pivoted at 13 to the end of the pipe is a hood 12, and secured to-thehood is a handle. 14, cooperating with a'wedge 15 on the pipe 9, thehandle 14 being frictionally held by the wedge.

In operation, steam is admitted through the steam pipe by opening valve16, and the pressure of said steam holds the short exit pipes 9elevated, as shown in full lines in Fig. 1, and then saw dust is throwninto the hopper and is broken up and scattered when it strikes the pipes9.- The weight of the saw dust tilts the pipes 9 downwardly but-thepressure of the steam will cause said pipes to gradually rise again,which causes the saw dust to be again broken up. The steam from thepipes 9 acts as jets to blow the saw dust up through the tapered exit 5,and into the pipe 10. From the pipe 10, the saw dust is blown into thefire box of the furnace, and todistribute it, the hood is tilted on itspivot.

While the saw dust is the pipe 10, the latter may be rotated by theoperator to scatter the dust and thereby prevent packing, which furtherconditions the dust to be more readily blown through the pipe by theaction of the steam jets. Obviously by manipulating the hood on-the endof the pipe, the saw dustcan be distributed evenly over the entiresurface of the grate, the rotation of the pipe and tilting of the hoodmaking it possible to throw the saw dust in any direction. according tothe will of the operator. p

The blast of steam and saw dust entering the fire box enhances the draftand materially tends to promote combustion, and as the operator candistribute the saw dust, it is evident. an even fire can be maintained.

IVhat I claim is:

In combination, a furnace, including afire box, a saw dust receivinghopper lopassing through cated in front of the furnace, a steam pipeextending into the front end of the hopperya horizontal pipe mounted atthe inner end of and communicating with the steam pipe, a. series ofnozzles communicating with the horizontal pipe and projecting rearwardtherefrom and underlylng the hopper entrance, said nozzles mounted forswinging movement with respect 1 to said horizontal pipe. whereby whensaw dustis 10 thrown into the hopper and on the nozzles the weight ofthe saw dust rocks the nozzles downwardly and the force of the steampassing through the nozzles subsequently rocks the latter upwardly andagitates the 15

